Nigerians among 12 suspects detained in Ghana over $150 million weekend cyber fraud

Accra, July 30, 2018 (AltAfrica)-The Financial Forensics Unit (FFU) of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service, has arrested 12 suspects in the biggest ever cyber-crime burst in recent history.

A circuit court last Friday remanded 11 out of the 12 suspects into police custody to reappear on August 9, 2018 as investigations continue.

Friday evening, another suspect was arrested, bringing the total number to 12.

The suspects, believed to be part of a wider cybercrime syndicate made up of Nigerians and Ghanaians, attempted transferring a whopping GH₵326 million from the vault of Universal Merchant Bank (UMB) electronically.

The bank detected that the amount was transferred electronically into the internal operational accounts of UMB and subsequently credited to the accounts of certain customers.

UMB, having suspected that its Information Technology Security infrastructure has been tampered with, quickly alerted the Financial Forensics Unit of the CID, who dispatched personnel to all branches of the bank to arrest persons who will visit the branches to withdraw money from identified accounts credited with the money.

It was discovered that the accounts that the monies were credited to were all single-purpose accounts opened purposely to receive the stolen money, and UMB quickly flagged all the accounts.

Each account was credited with between GH₵10 million and GH₵15 million.

It is emerging that even before the matter was reported to the police, about GH¢1 million of the money had been withdrawn from some of the accounts through Automated Teller Machines (ATM) in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates using internationally accepted credit cards.

Six people who attempted withdrawing money from some of the identified bank accounts in Ghana had been arrested.

Six other people associated with those arrested have also been picked up by the police on grounds that they may be members of the syndicate.

The ages of the all-male suspects ranges from 25 to 49 years.

The names of the suspects have been withheld since investigations are continuing.

UMB announces cyber attack
Management of UMB, in a statement over the weekend, announced that it successfully collaborated with officers of the Ghana Police Service to cause the arrest of members of an unscrupulous syndicate who attempted to attack the bank’s infrastructure.

“UMB wishes to state that due to the significant infrastructural investments made into the bank’s operational systems, the technical and security teams of our bank were quickly alerted and moved very swiftly to avert this situation.

“Our bank remains resilient and very committed to working with the security forces to clean the environment of any form of cyber miscreants,” it said.

UMB expressed appreciation to the Ghana Police Service for their professionalism and tactful recommendations in their collaborative efforts towards the execution of the exercise.

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